In 1972, then California Governor Ronald Regan signed legislation banning the sport of hunting mountain lions for five years. That ban was twice renewed before the voters passed Proposition 117 in 1990, which officially made it illegal to hunt the cats in the state.

Last week, president of the California Fish and Game Commission, Dan Richards, traveled to Idaho where he shot a mountain lion. Legally. When the picture above started getting circulated around the ol’ internets, people of The Golden State, including former SF mayor and current lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, were calling for Richards resignation.

Pretty sticky situation if you ask me. The dude didn’t really commit any crimes, right? He did go to Idaho to kill the mountain lion. But then again, there’s the obvious part about him killing a mountain lion. Read more here.

Cold Splinters is looking for someone to help out the operation in these parts. (In addition to the blog, we also run a consulting business in the outdoor industry.) It would be way more of the marketing side than the editorial side, so if you know someone in New York that wants a lot of great experience in the world of online outdoors, shoot me an email.

Jeffrey Lee and his wife, Ann Martin, both employees at Colorado’s Tattered Cover Book Store (a frequent stop when I was living out there), have amassed a 30,000-volume collection on “the land and people’s connection to the land” called the Rocky Mountain Land Library. They’ve been storing the books in their Humboldt Street apartment, and after 23 years, the house is being sold. After years of looking for a site, followed by almost six years of discussion, Lee said, he is close to signing a 99-year lease for a residential land-study center at South Park’s circa-1863 Buffalo Peaks Ranch along the Middle Fork of the South Platte River.

I know how people are with their mugs at home. I’m the same way. Your mug is your mug and cross contamination is unnecessary and unacceptable. For most of us, that sentiment also translates to camping, and for me, that means always bringing along the old L.L. Bean mug I’ve had for way too long. That thing has been all over the country, holding some insanely bad cups of instant coffee, tea, whiskey (notice the Coke bottle full of bourbon?), noodles, and often enough, all of these things at the same time.

Fluff might not be the greatest use of space in the ol’ backpack, and hell, most of you probably don’t even like the stuff, but I’ve got a major soft spot for it. I NEVER had marshmallow creme growing up, so this is a rather recent development, but a peanut butter and Fluff tortilla (a rare occasion if the go-to crunchy peanut butter, Corn Nuts, and apples/bananas aren’t around) can really hit the spot. And yes, it’s hard to find, but if you’re ever jonesin’ for a little of the gooey white stuff, I want to point you in the direction of Suzanne’s Ricemellow Creme, the version that uses brown rice syrup instead of egg whites and sugar. I prefer it to the original. Best for an overnight jaunt when a stove isn’t imperative.

As the post below mentions, Cold Splinters spent the last couple of days in Big Bend working on a project with Mikael Kennedy. Thank you to everyone who emailed me over the last few weeks with recommendations for places to go in those beautiful Chisos mountains. Your notes were extremely helpful. I’ve wanted to spend time in that park for a long while now and the last couple of days couldn’t have been better. Thanks to the lovely Kalen Kaminski of Upstate for providing the behind the scenes coverage (including the photo above) and the shibori trail shots.